Iron, Noobs, and Raiders.

[Potjeh]

Carry on my wayward son.

[Sarge]

I think Klaue got pretty lucky, but still...

I headed out late on world 2 as I was a complete noob still early in this world. I could have traded for metal and in fact, did a little bit with linen and chantrelles. I was hell bent on finding my own mine though and I eventully did. It took me 4 weeks to the day averaging more than 6 hours a day, but I found one.

In this world, more than 2 weeks after the whining was rampant about the lack of mines and the same amount of time after the NS grids were extended, I still found mines in the N grids, without any hassle and I never claimed them. Tri-cities found, and did not claim around 5 copper mines and a tin mine within the supergrid where we had already claimed a copper, tin and iron mine.

...where there's a will there is a way

[Zamte]

You say two different things in your posts, and it's causing you to be implacable.

You say everyone should have the same chances, and because not everyone has a mine, they do not. The problem is, they CAN get a mine. There were even some mines for sale for a while, not the metal, the mines themselves, and their surrounding towns if I recall correctly. You can become a raider if you want to and take over a mine town, or go out exploring and prospecting. I walked my character across five super grids the other night, it took me nearly four hours, and I used a boat as often as possible. The game is huge. There are mines out there, tucked inside of caves, or in little pockets people happened to prospect a little too far away from. There are mines who are owned by players who quit or died, walled in and waiting to be knocked down and taken over. Everyone has the opportunity to go out there and get it, but they are not going to be handed to you. It was not luck which caused the people who have them to get them. Many people, in fact the majority of the people I know, including my neighbors on my main character and my town on my alt, relocated, picked up and moved and rebuilt, for the mine. You need around 900 total perception ability (30 perception * 30 exploration) to see rustroot, then you need to make jars, actually collect the rustroot (which will be rare to find unless you're closer to 1,500 perception ability) and each extract only lets you prospect a couple of times. If you're not lucky and start close you will be going through a half dozen extracts before you find it.

The people who have the mines largely have them because, like everyone, they had the opportunity to get one, and they took it. The game requires various people doing various things. I don't enjoy making silk, so I don't do it, but silk is an important resource involved in a lot of products, and is thus valuable. Even linen (for banners) and bricks (for walls) which are easy to get are valuable because of the mass quantities people need them in. You complained earlier because somebody wanted to trade an hour worth of metal for 2,000 bricks, but you don't seem aware just how easy bricks are to get. For the price of 20 bricks, less than an inventory worth, you can get a chest, which are also fairly important in the trading process. 20 bricks takes a whole minute or so to collect the clay for, which you can go afk for, then stick in the kiln and go afk again. I can, and have for our walls, recently pumped out over 600 bricks in an hour, by myself, simply by building kilns at the clay spot and using build signs for a kiln and a brick wall cornerpost to store excess I get and then move as it's needed. I did this previously with a neighbor and we got the 1,200 bricks he needed in under an hour.

Now assuming you'd like a scythe (1 cast), a metal saw (1 wrought), a metal plow and 6 bars of repair metal (9 cast), a finery forge to make your own wrought later (5 cast), a meat grinder for sausages (3 cast), a pickaxe (4 cast), a smithy's hammer and anvil (2 cast and 5 cast), a steel crucible (2 cast), a metal cauldron (6 cast), a frying pan (1 cast), a stone mansion (5 cast), and a cellar for it (1 cast), it'd cost you 45 cast iron. That's 2,250 bricks at 50 bricks per iron bar. By my previous numbers that'd take (with two people mind you) around an hour and a half or two hours total to collect, and you can afk through all but a few minutes of it if you so choose. Add in 20 chests (8 cast), for another 400 bricks, and you've now covered every single metal tool, building, or storage device you will ever need. The only thing left, and the main thing that demands steel, is a brick wall. Brick walls tend to require a ton of iron, wrought, and steel because people make giant walls around giant towns.

In under two hours, when done properly, even possibly done with a new alt and your main, you can get all the metal you will ever need, just collecting bricks. This is why, as you say, Player B doesn't quit, because he can do easy work for the same rewards he could get by mining if he had a mine. Except rather than mining, he's making bricks.

Also, for the final time, this is politics, this is player interaction, this is trade. You cannot force every item in the game to be equal in value and all time spent to be equal in value unless you make it all either worthless or priceless. So long as player perception is involved, you will have issues of envy, "The grass is always greener" syndrome, and new things and high end things being sought after heavily. There is nothing you can do about it. Even if it were unfair that one player's time ends up being worth more than another's, the simple fact is it's unavoidable.

[ThirdEmperor]

This thread is funny! My favorite part is when someone I can't remembr suggested he make cheese insteade of gathering chants, this isn't all that funny until you realize that what he said was basicly this:

Don't like our prices? Go squeeze a cow's tits for money!